The 5 Cards that Life Deals Us

Do you agree that, after a good shuffle of the deck of cards, you really don’t have any influence on what cards you are dealt with?

In the game of life as well as in the game of Poker, there are five cards that are dealt to each player.

As cliche as it sounds, once these cards are dealt, it’s up to the players how they’re going to play these cards.

The Five Cards Life Deals Us:

Chemistry

We don’t get to choose our parents. We don’t get to choose if we’re going to be male or female. We don’t get to choose if we’ll have straight or curly hair. We don’t get to choose if we want brown or blue eyes. We don’t get to choose if we’re going to be tall or short. We don’t get to choose if we’ll have a fair or dark complexion. I know that with advances in medical technology we can already alter a lot of our inborn chemistry but not everyone has the capability to undergo such procedures. This is just a card that we are dealt with. Are you with me?

Circumstances

It’s so easy to blame circumstances for whatever bad events that happen to us. People tend to blame that they grew up in a bad neighborhood that’s why they are also bad. How about being poor? People tend to blame their current level of financial success because of their past experiences. How about having an unhealthy lifestyle? People tend to blame their current job which “dictates” them to do unhealthy stuff like smoking and drinking. Again, it’s easy to blame and pose as the victim to these circumstances. Have you seen yourself in a similar situation?

Connections

You are the average of the five people that you spend most of your time with every day.Tell me who your friends are and I’ll tell you who you are. Do these sound familiar? Have you heard yourself giving an excuse as to why you’re not successful? “Oh, she has great connections that’s why she closed that deal.” “He studied at this school that’s why he got to meet and mingle with those people.” To a certain extent, these are valid. I am not discounting that fact. Still, there’s a bit of victim mentality going on if you catch ourselves saying these. Do you agree?

Consciousness

You dictate how much you want to grow yourself. Learning can either be intentional or unintentional. You can learn from modeling other people, from experiences that we go through as we travel through life, from books that we read, from people we meet, from seminars we attend, from courses we take and we can also learn from the opposite of these. We can choose to learn, not learn or unlearn. ULTIMATELY, we have a…

CHOICE

Perhaps the most crucial card in this hand is the power of choice. You have a choice to embrace or extinguish your chemistry. You have the choice to become a victim or to become a victor of your circumstances. You have a choice to burn and build your connections. You have the power to expand or extinguish your level of consciousness. Whatever you choose, say to yourself that “I am responsible. I am enough. I am worthy. I am capable. I am God’s masterpiece.”

Here’s someone who was dealt a pretty bad hand, Nick Vujicic. He has no arms and no legs. I saw him talk live in Manila:

Full disclosure:

I heard this topic when I attended Mr Jojo Baldo’s talk about integrity:

When he is not busy watching cooking shows or playing 1st person shooting games, Argel consistently invests in the stock market, tinkers with his websites and reads a lot of books. He also helps Pinoys create, manage, grow and protect their wealth as a licensed financial advisor. Get in touch with him by sending an email to contact@argeltiburcio.com